More Party Projects

I've been working on some more things for the party.

First up are bunches of Tissue Paper Pom Poms. These red, white & blue ones will hang behind the boys' chairs so the background of the cake smashing pictures will be cute!

These ones will be attached to sticks that we painted making them into Truffula Trees that will decorate other areas of the room.

These last 2 pictures are sneak peaks at the thing I am most excited for at the party, but you will have to wait until the party is over to find out exactly what that is!

The ham is made from a circle of cardboard and some balled up tissue paper. The eggs are made from white caulk and ping pong balls. We spray painted the ham and ping pong balls green, then I used a circle of white paper and Sharpie to add the details to the ham. (Still need to add the fork to the ham.)

Any guesses as to what this stuff is for??

Time for me to get back to working on more projects! Hope you enjoy your Easter weekend!

~Anika

Birthday Onesies

With about 2 weeks until the party, I am getting a little nervous about getting all the projects done, but I don't have to worry about what they are going to wear anymore!! Yesterday I found time to make these onesies.

I can't take credit for the design; I got the idea from searching around on etsy. Then, I found a Dr. Seuss font and printed out a big number one to use as a pattern then I just used some HeatnBond UltraHold to adhere the 1 and the suspenders to the onesie. I had planned to stitch around it for extra hold, but the instructions on the HeatnBond said not to (they recommended using HeatnBond Light for that). Definitely saved me some time, so that's a plus! Ezra gets the blue #1 and Ashton will wear the red #1. They will probably wear them with black pants, but if they grow a bit in the next two weeks the new jeans I bought them might fit.

Well, the boys are both napping so I'm going to try to get to some more projects! Have a great day!

~Anika

Birthday Invitations and some recent Pics

I had big plans of making all the invitations for the party myself, but I finally came to my senses and realized I didn't have time and there was no way I could make anything this cute...

There are so many great Dr. Seuss things on etsy! This particular invite came from "pixels4parties". I loved how it turned out!

And a recent picture of each of the boys...

Just can't get enough of Ezra's hair! It sticks straight up like this for about a day after his bath!

And Ashton's new favorite thing to do is yell!! On this particular day, every time we tried to get a picture, he would start yelling!

Enjoy your day!

~Anika

Birthday Party Prep

I can hardly believe I just typed that title...how can it almost be time to celebrate Ezra & Ashton's 1st Birthday? The past 11 months seemed to have been here and gone in the blink of an eye! I have been planning their Dr. Seuss themed birthday party in my head for months and have a Pinterest board filled with ideas. Now I am putting my own spin on all those ideas, which means I've actually been able to use a few of my neglected craft supplies!! The invitations were mailed out yesterday and I took today off of work to get a few projects done.

So far today, I have made the menu cards and a pennant banner using some digital papers I purchased on etsy.

This banner is about 15 feet long, but I don't have anywhere in my house that I can hang it an get a decent picture of the whole thing. So this is just a snippet of it.

Can't wait to share pictures from the party. I will try to post more pictures of the decorations and such before the party if I have a chance, but no promises!

Hope you are enjoying the day!

~Anika

Trendy Tots #5: 9 months old!!

I'm joining the Trendy Tots Party on A Real-Life Housewife's Blog this week. Here are the boys' 9 month pictures! It's hard to believe they are 3/4 of a year old already!

I am in love with their argyle sweaters from The Children's Place! Their jeans are lined with flannel and are from Old Navy and their black velcro shoes are from Babies R Us.

And here are their individual shots...

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

~Anika

Surgery Update

We are thrilled to say that we are home and everything went wonderfully!

• We didn't hit rush hour traffic on the way to the hospital.
• Ezra fell asleep during pre-op so he wasn't screaming from hunger pains even though surgery was delayed about 45 minutes.
• The hospital staff was amazing!
• Surgery took WAY longer than we thought it would, but they were able to keep the facial nerve completely intact! His surgeon said it was quite a mess in there.
• The incision is shorter than I anticipated it would be.
• Within hours after surgery, Ezra was a happy guy!
• We realized how truly blessed we were after seeing other families dealing with much more challenging issues.
• Ezra had very little pain after surgery. We didn't even have to get a prescription for pain meds when we left the hospital.
• They were able to remove his drainage tube before we left so we don't have to deal with it at home or make an extra trip back to the hospital this week to have it removed.
• So far, he doesn't rub or scratch at the incision so we don't have to keep the splints on his arms.

Here's a post-op picture...Steri-strips, left over marking pen, some swelling and a little bruising

Happy reading a book with Daddy and Ashton

Crawling all over the house with his little smirk! You can barely tell anything was done from this angle.

Thanks for all your thoughts and prayers for Ezra, our family and the doctors. We felt them all - especially during the extra 90 minutes of surgery when we were anxiously waiting to hear from the doctor. Keep praying that the rest of recovery goes just as well!

If you have more questions about our experience with Atypical Mycobacterium, please leave a comment or email me at thoner02k @ yahoo . com. You can read all my posts related to this here.

~Anika

Atypical Mycobacterial Infection

Our little Ezra is way to cool for your run-of-the-mill ear infection or any other kind of typical childhood illness! Somehow, he managed to contract an Atypical Mycobacterial Infection. What's that?? Well, it's something you get from drinking unpasteurized milk (which Ezra hasn't) or from eating bird poop!! The infection has an incubation period, so that means he contracted it when he was 3-4 months old...not sure how he managed to get into bird poop at that age!

See the red lump on his jaw line? It just started turning red last week (which is the normal course of the infection) and it doesn't bother him at all; he doesn't poke at it and it doesn't hurt him when we touch it.

This is the short version of how we figured out what he had...

On November 28th, I noticed a lump on his jaw line and instantly freaked out. Lump=Cancer in my brain! The next morning I called to make an appointment with his pediatrician. Unfortunately, he wasn't in that day so we had to see a different doctor...I won't go into the details, but that was a BIG mistake!

After 3 weeks of appointments including an ultrasound, blood work, seeing a pediatric ENT, a CT Scan, a Fine Needle Biopsy, a TB skin test, and a chest x-ray, we FINALLY had our diagnosis. An Atypical Mycobacterial Infection. It requires surgery, but it is NOT life threatening and that was a huge answer to prayers.

We are lucky enough to live within an hour of several amazing Children's Hospitals and the one Ezra will have surgery at is brand spankin' new! His doctor/surgeon is awesome, and we are confident that he will do a fantastic job. The main risk to the surgery is damage to the facial nerve that runs along the jaw line. Ezra's doctor has never damaged the nerve, though! Surgery is in a week. Any prayers that you could say for a successful surgery and smooth recovery would be greatly appreciated! I will update you all as soon as possible after surgery.

If you have more questions about our experience with Atypical Mycobacterium, please leave a comment or email me at thoner02k @ yahoo . com. You can read all my posts related to this here.

Thanks a bunch!

~Anika